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Bjarni Tryggvason (born September 21, 1945) is a
Canada|Canadian astronaut.

He was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, but considers
Vancouver, British Columbia, to be his hometown.
He has two children. Mr. Tryggvason has about
4,000 hours of flight experience, holds an Airline
Transport Rating and has been a flight instructor
for 10 years. He is currently active in aerobatic
flight and is qualified as Captain in the Tutor
jet trainer with the Canadian Air Force. He
maintains a high level of physical fitness, enjoys
scuba diving, skiing, and has made 17
parachuting|parachute jumps.

He attended primary schools in Nova Scotia and
British Columbia and completed high school in
Richmond, British Columbia|Richmond, BC. He
received a Bachelor of Applied Science in
Engineering Physics from the University of British
Columbia in 1972 and did postgraduate work in
engineering with specialization in applied
mathematics and fluid dynamics at the University
of Western Ontario.

He is a member of the Canadian Aeronautics and
Space Institute and the recipient of numerous
scholarships throughout his university years. He
received an honorary doctorate from the University
of Western Ontario in 1998 and one from the
University of Iceland in 2000.

He worked as a meteorology|meteorologist with the
cloud physics group at the Atmospheric Environment
Service in Toronto in 1972 and 1973. In 1974, he
joined the University of Western Ontario to work
as a research associate at the Boundary Layer Wind
Tunnel Laboratory working on projects involving
rigid and aeroelasticity|aero-elastic model
studies of wind effects on structures.

In 1978, he was a guest research associate at
Kyoto University, Japan, followed by a similar
position at James Cook University in Townsville,
Queensland|Townsville, Australia. In late 1979, he
returned to the University of Western Ontario as a
lecturer in applied mathematics.

In 1982, he joined the Low Speed Aerodynamics
Laboratory at the National Research Council (NRC)
in Ottawa. He became part of the NRC team
assembled to study the sinking of the Ocean Ranger
oil rig in support of the Royal Commission
investigation into that tragedy. He designed and
led the aerodynamics tests, which established the
wind loads acting on the rig. Between 1982 and
1992, he was also a part-time lecturer at the
University of Ottawa and Carleton University,
teaching graduate courses on structural dynamics
and random vibrations.

He was one of the six Canadian astronauts selected
in December 1983. He was back-up Payload
Specialist to Steve MacLean for the CANEX-2 set of
experiments which flew on Mission STS-52, October
22 to November 1, 1992. He was the Project
Engineer for the design of the SVS target
spacecraft which was deployed during that mission.

He was the principal investigator in the
development of the Large Motion Isolation Mount
(LMIM) which has flown numerous times on the NASA
KC-135 and Douglas DC-9|DC-9 aircraft, and for the
Microgravity vibration Isolation Mount (MIM) which
operated on the Russian Mir space station from
April 1996 until January 1998, and for the MIM-2
which flew on STS-85 in August 1997. The MIM was
used on the Mir to support several Canadian and US
experiments in material science and fluid physics.

Tryggvason served as a Payload Specialist on
STS-85 (August 7-19, 1997), a 12 day mission to
study changes in the Earth’s atmosphere. During
the flight, his primary role was testing MIM-2 and
performing fluid dynamics experiments designed to
examine sensitivity to spacecraft vibrations. This
work was directed at developing better
understanding of the need for systems such as the
MIM on the International Space Station (ISS) and
on the effect of vibrations on the many
experiments to be performed on the ISS. The
mission was accomplished in 189 Earth orbits,
traveling 4.7 million miles in 284 hours and 27
minutes.

In August 1998, Tryggvason was invited by NASA to
take part in their 1998 Mission Specialist Class
held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston,
Texas. This training consisted of two years of
physical and academic training relating to future
missions. This class was the first group of
astronauts to be trained as both Mission
Specialist for the Space Shuttle and as potential
crewmembers for the ISS. He was initially assigned
as a Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory
(SAIL) crew representative. SAIL is used to test,
check out, and verify Shuttle flight software
prior to use on the shuttle. He also supported
integrated simulations on the ISS Training
Facility. This facility is used for ISS crew
training as well as in support of training the ISS
Mission Control team.

He currently splits his time between training and
technical duties at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston and the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal.
At the CSA he provides support to the Microgravity
Science Program which manages science payload
development for the ISS. He also serves as a CSA
representative on the NASA Microgravity
Measurement Working Group and on the International
Space Station Microgravity Analytic Integration
Team.